


Dawn

by Anonymous



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Belonging, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Families of Choice, Fever, Force Ghosts, Gen, Happy Ending, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Sick Character, Thunder and Lightning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 08:37:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6231799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey gets sick not long after arriving at Luke’s hideaway. To her surprise, the man who said he didn’t want her as a Padawan takes care of her, goes back to civilisation to make sure she’ll be okay, and, all right, makes her his Padawan. Alternatively: affectionate Luke & Rey bonding, and Rey realising that she’s found her place in the universe (and it’s right here with Luke, Finn, Chewie, Poe, Leia, and the Resistance).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dawn

“She’s too old,” said Luke. “I’m too old.” 

“Fickle you are.”

Rey didn’t mean to eavesdrop. It was a survival strategy — on Jakku, you evaded people by eavesdropping. You listened, and you made sure if you were in the firing line, you got out of it. But she wasn’t on Jakku, so she cleared her throat. 

“Master?” she asked. 

He waved a hand. “Call me Luke. And I thought I told you to go back to your ship?” 

It hadn’t been the best introduction. She’d stood there, holding his lightsaber until her arm ached, and he’d simply muttered, “you shouldn’t have come here,” and left. 

“No, you said I shouldn’t have come,” she said. 

She’d followed him — he’d gone into a crumbling building, passing under an arch, through drystone walls that threatened to topple on them, to this poor cell. It had a hole in the ceiling that let the smoke out from a fire, and what looked more like a nest than a bed in the corner, and in the other corner, a stack of dried leaves and preserved fish, and little else. He really had been living like a hermit. 

“Important, she is,” said the voice she’d overheard. It was coming from a palely luminescent form, a type of being she’d never seen before. It regarded her with a serious look. 

“Who is that? Is it a holo? Some kind of projection?” Rey passed a hand under the form, frowning when it didn’t seem to make a difference. 

“That’s Yoda,” said Luke, wearily. “He’s kind of a ghost. He only comes to bother me about once every five years, and tonight is our lucky night.” 

“Wow.” She leaned forward. “ _The_ Yoda? He’s real too? I mean…you’re real, Master Yoda?” 

The small ghost’s ears twitched, and a smile crossed his wrinkled face. “Tiresome, he finds me. Truths I tell him, dislike them he does.” 

“Truths you tell me, too late they are,” said Luke, an uncomfortable edge to his voice. “Ben killed Han.” 

“There you were not,” said Yoda. “Stop him you could, if train this girl you do.” 

“Don’t say that.” Luke looked shattered, like he might cry. “There’s no point. You told me I was too old to train, and Rey is at least as old as I was when I met you.” 

“Wrong I was.” 

“Didn’t think I’d ever hear you say that.” 

Silence reigned. Rey didn’t want to interrupt, didn’t want to intrude, but she was already kind of an intruder, and Luke — he’d said _Call me Luke_ , like it was no big deal that he was Luke-kriffing-Skywalker — Luke looked sad and old and tired. Maybe it was a mistake to come here. 

“I’ll consider it,” said Luke, finally. “But no good will come from it.” 

“Clouded, the future is.” 

Luke shook his head, sitting on a rock that was clearly there for that purpose.

“When has anything I’ve ever done been good?” he said softly, almost so softly that Rey thought it was a rhetorical question, but Luke looked up at the ghost. “Even when I win the day, it’s like I tip the first stone towards the next avalanche of disaster. If I train Rey, I’ll just —“ He closed his eyes. “I don’t know what will happen, but I know it won’t be good.”

Rey knelt next to him. “But you’re a hero,” she said. “It’s not your fault that bad things happen.” 

“Light will darkness swallow,” said Yoda. “Shame there is not in lighting a flame.” 

“The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” said Luke. “I’m done lighting flames.” He got up. “I’m sorry you came all this way, Rey, but I don’t think I can be the person you need.” 

“That’s rubbish,” she said, getting up and following him. “That’s total rubbish, because you can. You just don’t want to. And you wouldn’t be doing the same thing. I’m not Kylo Ren.” 

“He wasn’t Kylo Ren, either, when he began his training,” said Luke, sharply. “Rey, you can’t know that I won’t turn you to the Dark Side. I wouldn’t intend to, but neither of us can know that I wouldn’t. You don’t know me at all.” 

“Did you know Master Yoda at first when you trained with him?” 

He turned to her, then. “How do you know who I trained with?” 

“Hyperspace journeys are long. R2D2 told me.” 

“Artoo?” asked Luke. 

“Yes,” she said. “He told me you crash-landed when you first went to find Yoda.” He shook his head, and she tried to get him to listen, to see sense. She took his arm, tried to get him to look at her. “I’m not asking to be — I just want a chance. Please give me a chance.” 

He looked at her, and raised his metal hand to very gently brush the back of his fingers against her cheek. The robotic joints were cool against what felt like a fever in her, and she closed her eyes. 

“I’ve come all this way to find you,” Rey said, the heat of tears behind her eyelids. She’d left Jakku, where someone might be coming back for her right now; she’d left Finn, who’d wake up frightened and alone; she’d even left charted space. 

“You’re exhausted,” he said. “Did you fly in on the Falcon? I saw it land.” 

“Yes,” she replied. 

“Then you should go back there before nightfall,” he said. “There’s more comfortable berths than up here.” 

“And what about…?” she began. He shook his head, but she could sense that something had changed.

“Let me meditate on the correct course. You’ve brought me much to think about.” 

She nodded, not really understanding — he was right, she was exhausted right down to her heart. They’d agreed it wouldn’t be feasible to comm back to the Resistance, in case of interception, and she suddenly desperately wanted to see Finn, to have him smile at her and grab her hand. 

“Go on. We’ll speak tomorrow,” Luke said, and it was only when she was well away from the ruined building that she thought he might have pushed a little of the Force into the instruction, just to get her to leave. 

 

__________

 

Chewbacca was waiting for her when she got back to the ship. He made an inquiring sound, and she shook her head. 

“He doesn’t want to train me.” 

Rey was used to life being unfair. It had been unfair for years on Jakku. It had been unfair so long it was normal, really, for things not to go her way. She usually tried not to get her hopes up, but General Organa had been so sure that Luke would train her, and the Resistance was so kind, and she’d been hoping quietly that what Maz Kanata had said was true, and she could look forward to finding her family. It was a blow that Luke seemed to want to stay here on Exile Island in the middle of Nowhere Planet. Still. She could overcome it. She’d go back to Finn, and his pilot friend, and to General Organa, and she’d make her own way in the galaxy. 

Chewie offered her her his arms, and she leaned gratefully into a hug. “Thank you,” said Rey. 

All right, so life wasn’t that unfair. Not when she had people she could lean on. Chewie spent the evening with her, teaching her holochess, and it was only when she was tucked up in her bunk that she heard him leave. She knew, instinctively, that he’d gone to speak with Luke, and she pulled her blanket closer, a little embarrassed that he thought it necessary to intercede on her behalf, and a little grateful that he was doing just that. 

It didn’t quieten her thoughts, though. They ran around in her head like a handful of dropped bolts, spinning and whirling and too much of a mess to even begin to sort out. Eventually, she got up. She loved Chewbacca, but she had to face this herself — she had to show Luke that she was ready for this on her own. She pulled on her gauze robes, and let herself out of the Falcon, leaving R2D2 on guard duty. He bleeped at her to stay, but she was determined. 

Overhead, thunder crashed: a storm warning. How could a storm come up here? There was no dust, not that she’d seen, so what would drive it? What would fuel the static? She didn’t think the storm would hit before she was at Luke’s home, at least, and surely storms on this planet were less powerful than the heat-fuelled dry thunder of Jakku. Still, she took the stone steps two at a time, and aimed her flashlight at the ground, so that she didn’t lose her footing in the dark. It was only when she got to the flat clearing at the pinnacle of the island that she turned out the light, and crept up close to the ruined building, slipping in the arched doorway, the ceiling so crumbled in this part of the ruin that she could still see the sky. She quietly made her way to where she could hear Luke and Chewie talking. Her Shyriiwook was not good, but she could get what Luke was saying. 

“…understand,” he said, as she approached. “How is it possible that someone from Jakku could be so powerful?” 

Chewie’s answer was blurred by thunder; the crack of it made Rey jump. Storms on Jakku had never been kind; the sand got into everything, and lightning could electrify a whole ship if you weren’t careful. Here, lighting arced across the sky, racing itself. 

“I know,” said Luke. He paused, and the world was electric around Rey, the smell of the grass and of the stone under her feet damp and green and echoing all at once, the salt of the ocean drifting up to her as the waves roared with the oncoming storm. “But it’s not as easy as training her. When you’re untrained, you can — not ignore it, but not feel it as deeply. Once you’re trained, it’s like having a stone in your shoe. You can feel it all the time, and it’s not always good. If Leia had been trained when Alderaan was destroyed…” He trailed off into something that sounded like he was choking, just a little, like the words were having trouble coming out. “Chewie, I felt the poison in Ben’s mind. I felt everything when he killed my students. And when Han died…” Chewie made a short sound, like grief distilled. “I felt it like he’d put the lightsaber through my own chest. I can’t give that pain, that knowledge, to Rey. Not knowing what kind of galaxy we live in. Not when every time we put the Dark Side down, it rises in a new set of clothes.” 

This time, Rey did understand Chewie’s reply. _That should be her choice. Not yours. She is stronger than you suspect._ And she thought she understood Luke a little, too. There’d been scavengers on Jakku who’d lost people, worse that she’d lost people, and they went a little mad over it, some of them. But no-one on Jakku ever said you shouldn’t love, just in case you lost someone. Maybe that’s what Luke needed to hear. 

“Rey,” said Luke, suddenly. “Eavesdroppers seldom prosper. How much have you heard?” 

Her Jakku instincts kicked in. You were caught, you ran, or you’d be dead. She practically sprang from her hidey-hole, and bolted out into the storm, intending to get back to the Falcon and pretend she’d never left. But as she ran, water began to spot from the sky. _Rain_. Since when did storms have rain? She’d seen rain at the Resistance base, but never like— 

The clouds opened with a crash of thunder, and drenching rain teemed across the landscape. It was so thick and heavy that she couldn’t see, like a sandstorm, but water, and she was going to drown standing up, she was sure of it. Her small torch was useless, and the stone of the steps was so slippery she nearly fell. Somewhere nearby, a bolt of lightning hit a huge rock and split it, sending splinters off in all directions. 

“Rey!” she heard, faint above the wind and rain. 

She didn’t know what to do — her sense of direction was failing her, hair and clothes plastered to her body, eyes full of water, water getting into her lungs when she breathed in. She struck out in the direction of the Falcon, but hit a slimy patch of ground and fell, and then swallowed the water the wrong way as it came out of the sky, her whole body ringing with fear. 

“Rey!” This time the cry was echoed by Chewbacca, but Rey was coughing and choking on the driving rain, and she kept sliding over, tumbling down the steep stairs. They might have been a cliff for all the purchase she could get on them. She was aware that she was probably crying, which was stupid, because she hadn’t cried over far less, but she was so lost, and she was drowning where she stood, and Luke had said he wouldn’t train her, and she’d left Finn, wonderful Finn, to come here for nothing, and— 

She arrested her motion, and went to her knees. Another huge thunderclap didn’t make her flinch as it split the sky; she only just heard the split-splat of feet running on the wet ground, and then arms were around her, lifting her up like she was a child. They weren’t Chewbacca’s arms; one had a stripped back mechanical hand, which dug in a little under her thigh, but it was good, it was good, it reminded her she was alive. 

“Rey,” said Luke, as she clung to him. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.” 

Rey had no memory of being a child. She knew, academically, that she must have been one; she just didn’t remember it. But there was something warm and familiar in being cradled in Luke’s arms; he got her inside, and wrapped her in a blanket, setting her in front of the fire to dry off. He made her a mug of something sweet and tannin-tasting, some sort of tea, and then he sat beside her. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes and throat still clogged. The rain droplets coming through the chimney-hole hissed and sizzled on the fire, but had no chance of extinguishing it. She was glad, momentarily, for fires. 

“Don’t be,” he replied. “I was the one who was wrong.” 

 

___________

 

Rey slept in Luke’s bed that night; he’d made a mattress from what seemed to be springy, clean-smelling moss, and he tucked her in gently, touching her temple with the back of his fingers, smiling at her even as she was sleepy. 

“You want to rest,” he said, and she closed her eyes, and didn’t think of anything more until the morning. 

 

___________

 

When Rey woke, Chewbacca and Luke were both asleep by the fire; they weren’t curled up together, but she sensed it was a near thing. She felt shivery and hot all at the same time, and when she tried to sit up, her head ached so much she had to flop back down again. The motion must have woken Chewie, because he got up and poked Luke to get him to wake. 

“I’m sorry you had to sleep on the floor,” she said, and her voice came out as a dry rasp. Her throat itched, tickling. 

“It was appropriate penance,” said Luke, stretching. “Does my old bones good to remember what it’s like to sleep by the fire.” 

“You’re not that old,” she said, and the itch in her throat turned into a cough, which made the ache in her head worse as she tried to control it. Luke helped her to sit, and then rubbed her back with his ordinary hand, warm and soothing. 

Rey remembered getting sick on Jakku, when she was a very little girl. She’d thrown up in her own bed, and then sat there and cried, because she was smelly and sick and soggy with her own vomit, and there was no-one there to help her. Illness could be a death sentence on Jakku; she was lucky, in retrospect, to have made it. 

“There we are,” said Luke, as the coughing subsided. “There we are. You gave us a scare last night, running into the rain like that. Chewie thought you’d gone off the edge of one of the cliffs.” 

Rey almost said _but wouldn’t have that made your life easier?_ , but she didn’t. Luke seemed to know, though; he shook his head, still rubbing her back. 

“I’ve been alone a long time,” he said, and yes, he must have worked her out, because she hadn’t said anything. “I panicked.” 

“So did I,” she said, and they smiled at each other. 

“I guessed that, by the way you tried to run off into a driving storm.” 

“I’ve never —“ Her throat was on fire. “It didn’t rain on Jakku. The storms there were always dry.” She scrunched up her eyes, trying to make her headache go away. “I don’t like rain.” 

“It’s not always like that. Sometimes it’s a relief,” said Luke. “You must have been just holding off a terrible cold, to get so sick so quickly. Chewie told me you were running around in the snow with no cold-weather gear. You scared him, too.” 

“I…no?” She almost went to shake her head, but then thought better of it. 

People didn’t get scared about what happened to Rey. They didn’t get scared, and they didn’t get sympathetic. Rey looked after herself. But her head ached so much, and she felt weak and wobbly, and Luke was so solid next to her. He’d been a pilot, she remembered, and suddenly had a vision of her pilot doll back on Jakku, but giant, and older, and real, and someone who would look after her… 

She’d had that vision before, back when she was young enough to remember her parents. Somehow, they’d become overlaid with Luke. She coughed, and wondered what she was supposed to do; nothing in her life thus far had prepared her for this. 

“Rey,” he said. “You should lie back down again. Chewie, are there any analgesics in the Falcon’s medkit? Or antibiotics, for that matter?” 

Chewie made an affirmative howl as Luke helped Rey to curl back into the bed of sweet-smelling moss, tucking her blanket back her. She wriggled it off. 

“Too hot,” she complained. 

“Leave it on,” he said, tucking it back into place. “You’ve got a fever.” 

A fever. Not good. People on Jakku died of fevers — Maugai Lien had died just this last winter, when a fever wracked her to pieces and she couldn’t scavenge. Fear stabbed at Rey’s heart. People died of fevers. She didn’t want to survive Kylo Ren and die of fever. 

She heard Chewie ask a question, but didn’t understand it. 

“Yes,” said Luke. “I think we’ll have to.” She felt his metal hand at her brow, and then he stroked her hair back. “I’ve got a temperature sensor in this hand, Rey. Let me just see how bad it is.” 

“Am I going to die?” she asked. 

“I won’t let you die,” he replied. 

“Truth he tells,” said an odd voice in her ear, or maybe in her aching head. She closed her eyes, and the next time she opened them, she saw Luke raking over the embers of the fire. She closed her eyes again. Now he was packing what little was here into a small bag. Chewbacca was nowhere to be seen. 

“Rey,” said Luke. “How are you feeling?” 

“Thirsty,” she said. “Cold.” She shivered. “I’m cold.” 

“Thirsty we can do something about,” he said, and it felt simultaneously like hours and like seconds before he was helping her hold an old tin cup full of water so clear and chilly it made her head ache even worse. She couldn’t help the sound of pain she made, and then the cup was nowhere to be seen and she’d been tucked into a hug. 

“My poor Padawan,” murmured Luke. “What did they do to you to make you this ill?” 

“Am I your Padawan?” she asked, against the rough warmth of his robes. 

“Yes,” he said. “If you want that. But we’ll do things differently this time; we won’t fall to the Dark, either of us. We mustn’t.” 

“Master Luke,” she said, and buried her face in his shoulder. 

He held her just a little tighter, and she knew then that he understood. 

 

______________

 

Getting onto the Falcon was all a bit of a blur. She thought Chewbacca might have carried her, because she remembered his fur and his smell, and he definitely carried her off the Falcon when they got back to the new Resistance base, carried her off and there were people shouting, and everything was too bright, and Master Luke was in the middle of it all, issuing orders like he was the General herself. 

On the Falcon, Master Luke had been there the whole time, but now he wasn’t. The fear of him vanishing again was irrational, Rey told herself, but it didn’t stop her from seeking him out as the Resistance doctors eased her into a bed, pricking her skin with needles and telling her to _just relax, you’ll be fine_. And where was Finn? He was supposed to be here. Where was Finn? 

She should never have left Jakku. Her family might have come back for her. 

“Just relax. You’ll be fine,” said the doctor. 

She didn’t feel fine. She tumbled off into dizziness and the black of drugged unconsciousness, her dreams indistinct and uneasy. She saw Kylo Ren kill Han Solo — saw Finn die of his wounds on Starkiller — saw her AT-AT on Jakku, burned out and hollow, all her things blowing away across the dunes. She saw Unkar Plutt tell her family, who’d come back for her, that she’d been fickle, that she hadn’t waited, that she’d left. She couldn’t see her mother’s face, couldn’t— 

“Hush.” She felt the word rather than heard it. “Sleep. The infection is leaving your body.” 

“Don’t leave me,” she said, half- to her faceless family, half- to the calming voice in her head. “Not again. I promise I’ll— I promise — I’ll be better —“ 

“It’s all right, Rey. I won’t leave you,” said the voice. 

“Not again.” 

“I promise. Not again.” 

______________

 

Rey woke up to a crowded room in what she assumed was a Medical wing of the new Resistance base; she was in a bed, someone was sitting beside her holding her hand, and there was someone else in a bed opposite her, and in the bed beside her… 

“Finn,” she said, and he turned to look at her, a beautiful smile blossoming on his face. 

“Rey!” he replied, getting out of bed, wincing and grabbing his back, and then running to her side anyway. “Rey, we were so scared, you were—“ 

“Finn,” said Master Luke, without censure. “Are you doing yourself injury?” 

“I promise I’m not,” said Finn, clearly lying. He bent down so his face was at her level, and pressed his forehead to hers. “I don’t care if it hurts, I just—it’s Rey.” 

“Finn,” she said, joyful, like the rush she got when she found a big machine part, something that would net her a week’s worth of portions. “You’re awake.” 

“Bacta,” he said, almost proudly. “The Resistance uses bacta even for bad cases.” 

“That’s when it’s supposed to be used,” said General Organa, a little drily. Rey hadn’t seen her come in. She wondered if the General had always been there. “Finn, are you permitted to be out of bed?” 

“But it’s Rey,” said Finn, a little helplessly. “She’s all right.” 

“Thanks to you,” said the General. “And thanks to Luke bringing her back here. And I think I have you to thank for bringing my brother home, Rey.” 

Finn was still curled in close to her, both of them breathing the same air. 

“I’m so glad you’re all right,” she whispered. 

“Ditto,” he replied.

“Finn, back on your bed.” The General’s voice was a little firmer, this time. “We didn’t get you healed just to have you open the wound again.” 

“But—“ 

“I’ll be right here,” said Rey, because she wasn’t sure she could even sit up. She realised belatedly that the person holding her hand was Master Luke — and that he had been holding her hand through her whole conversation with Finn. 

“All four of you will be right here for at least another day,” said Master Luke. 

“All four of us?” asked Rey, and she heard a whistling beep from the floor. “BB-8?” 

“BB-8’s refused to leave until we do,” said a voice that sounded as weak as she felt. “So, for that matter, has Luke Skywalker.” 

“Poe Dameron,” said Rey, trying to sit up a little to look at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Same as you,” he said. “Turns out General Hux likes to give his prisoners a little time-delayed surprise.” 

“Luckily, it also turns out that Stormtroopers are innoculated against any of Hux’s _surprises_ ,” said General Organa. “We tried to contact the Falcon to let you know, but you were already in communications blackout. We were hoping against hope that Chewie turned the ship around once you started to get sick.” 

“Finn woke up just in time to work out what was going on,” said Poe. “My illness kicked in a few days after you left.” 

“Finn, you’re a marvel,” said Rey.

“Yeah,” said Finn. “Turns out I’m a pretty big deal. Don’t know if anyone told you.” 

“Get some rest, big deal,” said General Organa; Rey could hear the fondness in her voice. “I want you up and about by the time the new Senate rendezvous here, and that’s the day after tomorrow.” 

“New Senate?” she asked. 

“You don’t think the civilised worlds would stand by after that — that atrocity?” asked the General. “People are angry, Rey, and they’re determined to fight the Dark Side. More determined than ever, now that they know Luke Skywalker is back.” 

“And that General Organa is leading the fight,” said Poe. “Because it’s the Resistance who called it. It’s the Resistance who downed Starkiller. And it’s the whole galaxy who are going to resist this time. Almost everyone knew someone in the Hosnian System when it went up.”

Rey closed her eyes, her head spinning. She felt Luke squeeze her hand. 

“It’s only just beginning, isn’t it?” she asked. 

“Yes,” said the General. “Every day is a new beginning. A new chance to make things right. And that’s what we will do; that’s what we’ll all do.” 

Rey could see why people took to the sky for her, why they flew suicide missions on her word. She wondered if the General ever felt the weight of her responsibility like Master Luke clearly did; whether she ever wanted to just get in a ship and fly so far away that her destination was uncharted. 

“Rey?” asked Finn, but she didn’t have the energy to open her eyes. 

“She’s exhausted,” said Luke. “Fighting off the fever is difficult for the body, even with your antibodies joining the war, Finn.” 

“I have Finn’s antibodies?” she asked, feeling like she was floating. 

“Yes,” said Luke. “You and Commander Dameron both.” 

“Thanks,” said Rey, managing to get her eyes open a crack. 

Finn was a fighter. If she had some of him in her, then she could do this. She still felt floaty, like Master Luke’s hand wasn’t a tether but a touchstone, an anchor so that she didn’t get lost. She let herself fall into the dark again, but this time it was welcoming, like climbing under the blankets to hide from a storm, or burying herself into someone’s embrace. 

 

______________

 

“What?” asked Rey, as C3PO fussed at her hair. “It’s fine, I checked it this morning.” 

“Miss Rey,” said C3PO. “This is a _ceremony_. In front of the _Senate_. To recognise the service that—” 

“It’s fine,” said Rey, again. “3PO…” 

Later, she felt pleased that she hadn’t listened to the droid, because aside from Chewie, she was the scruffiest person in the new Senate meeting. It made her feel oddly proud to be there in her Padawan robes, rather than the elaborate gowns and fabrics that the Senators wore. In truth, she didn’t really understand the point of being given a medal, but Poe was so ecstatic he was practically levitating, and Chewie had made some sort of joke about it, and she wasn’t going to bring the mood down by questioning everything. She was still feeling pale and thin, like she was made of the flimsiest transparisteel, the sort of stuff that wobbled if you had a big enough sheet of it, and tore when you rammed it with a suitably large rock. 

The ceremony was trite enough, until: “Finn Dameron,” said the General, and Rey felt her eyes widen as Finn stepped forward to have a medal pinned on him. “Rey Skywalker,” followed, and she saw not only Finn’s shocked expression, but Poe’s and everyone else’s. 

“He said I could share his name,” said Finn, later, “because I didn’t have one, and I couldn’t think of anything better than being family with Poe.” 

“It’s traditional if a Padawan has no surname to take her Master’s,” Rey murmured. “But if I had to choose my family…” 

Finn hugged her. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.” 

 

________________ 

 

The next time Rey faced down Kylo Ren, she held her purple lightstaff with a measured focus that she knew she hadn’t had the first time they’d fought. 

“Rey Skywalker,” he spat. “The mongrel bitch that Luke took in.” 

“Ben Solo,” she said, feeling the pull of the Light Side, feeling the good will that came with knowing most of the galaxy wanted you to win. “That’s your name. Not Kylo Ren.” 

“Ben Solo is dead,” said Kylo Ren. 

“You said that last time I saw you,” she replied. “Do you really believe it?” 

Honestly, she only needed to buy Poe and Finn time. Poe had to get Finn onto the planet, because with his Senate access codes, he could carve his way through the defences and re-capture the building that the First Order had taken, and with it, regain control of the New Senate. She had a bad feeling that they’d do it with as much panache possible; Finn would jump from an X-Wing without a parachute, or Poe would try to fly through a corridor to clear a pathway for Finn to follow, something that would cement Finn’s reputation as the daredevil senator. 

She felt Finn’s success through the Force, and smiled. Ren pulled away; he’d been spoiling for a fight, but maybe he knew that this was a battle he couldn’t win. He must have felt Finn’s triumph, too. Finn wasn’t exactly subtle, if you knew how the Force ebbed and flowed around people and ideas and things. 

“Say hello to Luke for me,” said Kylo Ren. “Get him to tell you how his last students died.” 

And that was stupid, wasn’t it, because Master Luke had told her, and she’d wept with him, and they’d each promised to kill the other if they went to the Dark Side, which should be strange and a little creepy, but Rey felt so much safer knowing he would. She didn’t know if Finn would be able to kill her if he had to, and honestly, she wanted to spare him from it. 

After, sitting on the edge of the landing field, she told Master Luke that Kylo Ren had said hello, and had then fled in a shuttle like a beetle scuttling off from an upturned log.

Master Luke sighed. “I want him to see the Light again,” he said. “And not just as it comes tearing through him in his death.” 

“Is is possible?” 

“Anything’s possible.” 

“And you forgive him.” 

Master Luke was quiet for a long minute. “No,” he said, eventually. “But I can bear it. I’d rather see him repent for himself.” 

“How?” she asked, tucking herself up beside him. Her anger still burned hot for what Kylo Ren had done. “I don’t think I can ever forgive him, and I barely knew Han.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “Han was kind to me. He offered me a place on his ship.” 

“I can bear it because I have you,” said Luke. “You, and Finn, and Poe, and all the Resistance. I can bear it because Leia took the largest part of the sorrow, but she still fights to make a better galaxy. And we won’t make a better galaxy through more hatred.” 

“Maz Kanata said that if I sought my family, I had to look forward rather than backward,” said Rey. 

Luke chuckled. “She’s canny. Was she right?” 

“She gave me your lightsaber, so maybe?” 

She still had the lightsaber, even though she preferred the lightstaff. One of Luke’s ghosts was touchy about the lightstaff, but Rey didn’t see the issue with it. Luke put an arm around her shoulders; some of the ghosts didn’t like that, either — that Luke and Rey didn’t maintain detachment, but some of them argued for it, argued that Masters and Padawans had always shared a bond, even in the earliest days, and that perhaps acknowledging that made them stronger. 

“I’m glad you came back,” said Rey, as Black One landed out on the edge of the strip, followed by Finn’s Blue Six, and the pilots rejoiced, running to them, helping Finn and Poe down and celebrating saving the new Senate. She could hear snatches of conversation — Finn, “and then I shot the—“ — Poe, “and the noise, you wouldn’t believe…” — Snap, “reporting that the building is secure—“ and she could go over there, she supposed, but she didn’t have to. She felt Luke kiss her temple, and yes, Maz had been right, she’d found her family and it was right here. 

“I’m glad,” said Luke. “I’m glad you came to get me. I can’t believe it took me so long to see that it wasn’t over.” 

“Nothing’s ever over,” she said. “Life doesn’t work like that. I think it’d be sad if it did — just — existing, after all the excitement is done.” 

Finn was jogging over to them, and she got up, running to him and letting him spin her off her feet in his excitement. His senator’s robes were ripped, and there was a smudge of something on his cheek, and he was smiling like a whole galaxy of suns. 

“You did it!” they said in unison, and Rey laughed as Finn kept spinning her, until Poe came over and caught them before they tumbled, and then Snap and Jess and Chewie and BB-8 and Artoo and everyone, and Rey knew then that she’d beat Kylo Ren, she’d beat the First Order, she’d beat the whole damn Dark Side because she had everything they didn’t. 

 

____________

 

“Rey Skywalker,” said Maz Kanata, sometime ages hence. “Do you believe me now?” 

“Yes,” said Rey. Her brown robe stood out in Maz’s new cantina; people stared, because they still weren’t used to seeing Jedi. Most of them still thought the Jedi were dead, or a myth. “And I need your help. You once told me you knew something of the Force.” 

“That I do,” said Maz. “And what is it you want?” 

“Tell them,” she said. “Tell the younglings where to find us. We’ll train them.” 

“As Jedi.” Maz gave her a look that was — shuttered, perhaps. It was hard to tell with the goggles. 

“Sort of,” said Rey. “But sort of not. Luke and Finn and I — we’ve been working out some things. We think we know why it went wrong. There’s only so much denial that one can practice before everything goes sour.” 

“You do not wish to raise Jedi to deny the bonds of love between beings?” Maz opened the lenses, stared at her with naked eyes. “This is a change.” 

“Yes,” said Rey. “But I think it’s for the better.” She leaned in. “You helped me find my family. Not my blood family, but my real family. Will you help me to allow others to experience the same?” 

She could feel Luke as he meandered through the cantina, talking with people, making friends. She could feel Finn and Poe, on a distant system, as Finn argued for peace in a bloody civil war. She could feel the General, and Chewie, and even the droids, although goodness knew how the Force managed that. She could feel everything, and it was beautiful. 

“Yes,” said Maz, closing her lenses, smiling at her. “We’ll begin with a boy on Bespin…”


End file.
